IDOLxISxDEAD
In the world of video games, it’s rare for two prominent creative figures to collaborate on a project after successfully establishing their own careers and unique styles. This phenomenon is partly a result of the way the video game industry has historically been structured. For much of its existence, the industry has required many developers to sign exclusive contracts with specific publishers or developers, limiting their ability to create freely.
In movies and music, collaborations are quite common. However, with the latest game from developer White Owls Inc., titled Hotel Barcelona, we witness a rare partnership between two prolific game creators: Suda51 and Swery65. Together, they have crafted a game that pays homage to the horror genre, offering plenty of intriguing elements to explore.
When both creators got together in 2019 for a Grasshopper Manufacture event, the seeds of the Hotel Barcelona project were sown, where they discussed some of the basic premises and decided to create something together, with more details being ironed out at future meetings.
The story premise, initial world-building, and gameplay style were hashed out between the two, and afterward, Swery took charge of the project to fully develop it at his own White Owls studio, with further supervision and consulting done with Suda along the way, while not being actively involved in the development.
This makes Hotel Barcelona almost entirely a Swery/White Owls project in many ways, but with an undeniable amount of Suda 51’s DNA peppered throughout. Since the project was set to be an homage and celebration of the horror genre in many ways, it’s fitting that both men have their own unique history with horror games. Swery’s past projects include Extermination, the Deadly Premonition series, and The MISSING. Suda’s career dates back even further, with early works such as the Twilight Syndrome series in the 1990s. His portfolio also features games like Michigan: Report from Hell, Killer 7, Fatal Frame 4, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw, and also showcasing his general appreciation for horror in most of his projects.
Instead of opting for a traditional horror game format with fixed camera angles or a first-person perspective, the game takes a different approach by adopting a 2.5D action platformer style with rogue-lite elements, similar to something like Dead Cells. This design choice leads to a wild and chaotic experience for several reasons, particularly considering the high level of difficulty commonly present in these types of games, and Hotel Barcelona certainly embodies this challenge. The game can be quite challenging at the beginning, especially since you start with no upgraded skills or weapons. I would generally recommend starting on the easy difficulty setting as you familiarize yourself with the nuances of the combat system.
As for the combat system, it isn’t terribly deep overall, with only a handful of different types of weapons and enemies, but it’s just satisfying enough to keep going most of the time, even though some cheap hits and frustration will come into the picture from time to time, especially if you start on Normal difficulty. Even on Easy, you’re still very under-powered at first, and the game is encouraging you to do some intense grinding to get to a point where you start to gain some power and ability to handle the different situations better, which also stands at odds with the fact that you lose most of your gathered upgrade resources you don’t spend on upgrades every time you start a new run.
The gameplay loop took a while to truly grab me, but thankfully, the aesthetics and other design elements of the game kept me interested from the start and more compelled to keep playing. This may happen at different times for everyone, or may never happen for some, but once the gameplay really got its hooks in me, I couldn’t stop playing until I unlocked nearly everything I could. At the end of the day, if you were only assessing this by its gameplay alone, I’d say it’s just a decent action platformer, but when combined with all of its other elements, it transcends its gameplay genre a bit, as Suda and Swery’s games are both somewhat known for doing.
The overall gameplay content isn’t very lengthy, featuring three main stages and three bonus stages. However, what kept me engaged was the challenge of making multiple attempts to unlock additional content. This aspect, along with everything else that Hotel Barcelona has to offer, greatly enhanced my experience with the game.
It’s an experience that wears its influences on its sleeve proudly, in a way that honors the history and serves as a celebration of not only the careers of both its creators but also horror movies, horror games, metal music, and much more.
Presenting a list of all the influences or references I personally found throughout my time with the game feels like a way to give just the slightest glimpse of how much was packed in here, but keep in mind that all of these things are done cleverly and respectfully, and weaved into a new fabric that becomes something of its own, not just references for the sake of it. I picked up on influences from things like Illbleed, The MISSING, Siren, Deadly Premonition, Travis Strikes Again, Friday the 13th, The Shining, Halloween, the Alien series, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Suspiria, Ringu, Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, The Addams Family, Jaws, Black Sabbath, and a handful of others.
These references and homages all felt like a love letter to the art that inspired the creators to do what they do, and it manifested in so many ways, including the music, visuals, story elements, dialogue writing, and gameplay. Hotel Barcelona channels decades of influences into something new, playing with the tropes that all this art helped establish in our culture in ways that feel fun, tongue-in-cheek, yet important and meaningful at the same time.
The wild, eclectic storytelling, characters, and scenarios featured here feel like they could’ve only been dreamt up by creators like Suda and Swery, who often think outside the box of what’s expected from media of any kind, and make it feel guided by the intuition of what they truly think is entertaining and valuable. The dialogue here often gets into some pretty heavy philosophical topics that cover a gamut of aspects related to our world and society, from things like art and creation to social media’s effect on the world, war and politicians, mental health, self-expression, gender issues, and so much more.
The topics all feel respectfully handled in a way that speaks closely to the creators’ own values and thoughts in an authentic and unfiltered way that feels rare in the medium of video games. They may not be the most profound conversations ever had, and are often interrupted by humor or wild happenstance, but I found myself frequently relating to the characters in ways that were uncanny but felt important. The mixing of different types of media is also another factor of immersion here, with all the 3D and 2D animation art frequently being interspersed with random live-action segments, making the experience feel surreal at times in ways that are inexplicable.
From a visual standpoint, the in-level graphics are not particularly appealing, showcasing plenty of antiquated Unreal Engine ugliness. There are also occasional performance issues, such as framerate issues and controls that are not as responsive as they should be, which can be frustrating in a game that needs you to react quickly in most situations. I expect that many of these issues will be addressed in future updates, but for now, they can be a bit of a nuisance. However, despite some of the 3D art being subpar, the 2D art and animation featured in most cutscenes and throughout the game are exceptional and very creative. The charm of the overall experience tends to outweigh these shortcomings.
Some of the game’s multiplayer elements are technically optional, but you can play with friends and hop into each other’s games to wreak havoc together. You can also invade other people’s games to act as an assassin to take them down and end their run. These features can be disabled in the options menu, and while I wouldn’t say they feel tacked-on, they’re certainly not essential to the experience.
Hotel Barcelona may not appeal to everyone, but for those who appreciate the unique game-making styles of creators like Suda and Swery, it will most likely be up your alley. The game is priced relatively low, which makes it an attractive recommendation for something so lovingly crafted. If you can wrap your head around its unconventional approach to game design, it’s a wild ride worth having that will challenge your perceptions of action platformers and pay homage to various horror-adjacent art forms throughout its design.
(8.5 / 10)
Great
(8.5 / 10)Rely on Horror Review Score Guide
A PC review code was provided by the publisher.
